Linda Castillo - Operation - Midnight Escape

Breathing hard, she stared at him, unable to move, a confusion of emotions descending in a rush.

He glared down at her with dark eyes. His thin nose looked as if it had been broken and never properly set. His chiseled mouth was pulled into a grimace. But she knew from experience that his mouth could be gentle, too. That it could kiss a woman senseless if she wasn’t careful….

“Get off me!” she cried.

His nostrils flared with every labored breath. He was staring at her as if she were a ghost and he couldn’t quite believe he was seeing her. “Just be still,” he said. “Don’t fight me. You know I won’t hurt you.”

But Leigh knew that was the one thing Jake Vanderpol did exceptionally well. Something she would not let him do again. “You have no right to be here. To break into my room—”

“I’m here to save your life,” he cut in. “If you’re as smart as I think you are, you’ll let me do it.”

Jake knew better than to think of how good she felt beneath him. She was a witness desperately needing protection. At least, until Rasmussen was captured or the U.S. Marshals Service could take over. But when it came to Kelsey James, the logic and the good sense he’d always prided himself on never so much as entered the picture: not six years ago when he’d crossed too many lines to count; not now because he had a pretty good idea that he was going to be crossing even more.

Staring into her vivid blue eyes with her body warm and soft against his, he prayed he could keep a handle on things this time.

Not bloody likely.

Feeling his body harden the way it did every time he so much as thought of her, he shifted, then pushed away, rose and offered his hand. Ignoring him, she scrambled across the bed and jumped to her feet.

“How did you find me?” she asked.

“I make a living finding people,” he said. “Give me a break.”

Her gaze flicked toward the door, and he realized for the first time how badly he must have frightened her. But he hadn’t had a choice. He’d known that if he’d taken the time to knock, she would have gone straight out the window.

“Do you have any idea how close you came to getting shot?” she asked.

“The day you can get the drop on me is the day I deserve a bullet.” He crossed to the door, looked both ways, then closed it and locked it. “Why didn’t you call your coordinator at the U.S. Marshals Office? Let them relocate you, protect you until that son of a bitch is caught?”

“In case you missed the news, it was a deputy marshal who helped him escape. Someone inside the U.S. Marshals Office gave it up, Jake. How can you expect me to trust them with my life?”

Wishing he could dispute that, he strode to the window, parted the curtains and surveyed the parking lot.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

He turned to her. “I’m going to take you to a safe house.”

“I don’t want to go to a safe house. I sure as hell don’t want to go with you.”

“You don’t stand a chance of surviving on your own. It’s only a matter of time before Rasmussen finds you. We both know what will happen when he does.”

A tremor went through her. “He won’t find me.”

“Don’t bet your life on it. If he can hack into the Witness Security Program database, finding you will be a walk in the park.”

“I know how to disappear. A new name. A new city. I can do it and I don’t need your help.”

Pulling the Glock from the shoulder holster beneath his coat, he checked the clip, then shoved it back into its leather sheath. “You were in the database. He’s got your new name. Your latest address. As far as we know he could have had you under surveillance for quite some time.”

“I know how to take care of myself.”

“Not when it comes to Rasmussen.”

She walked around the bed and got in his face. “I don’t want you here. I don’t need you. I don’t need your help. I can sure as hell do without your brand of protection.”

The words stung, but Jake didn’t let himself react. He figured he’d had that one coming after what happened six years ago. He’d never forgiven himself for not getting to her in time to keep her from going back into the lion’s den…

He may not have seen her for six years, but he’d kept track. She might think she was prepared, with her brown belt in karate and handgun training, but there was no way she was equipped to handle this on her own. She might talk tough; she might even look tough. But he saw the fear in her eyes. He doubted she had a clue what six years in a cage could do to a man like Rasmussen.

“I just want to help you,” he said. “Let me take you to the safe house.”

She stuck out her chin. “Or maybe you think I’m your ticket to Rasmussen. Maybe you want a repeat performance of how things went down the last time. You got that promotion after you nabbed him, didn’t you? Isn’t that what this is all about? Your ego? Your job? Get your man at any cost, including your own soul? Or in that case, it was my soul, wasn’t it?”

Jake just stared at her. He wondered if she really believed what she was saying. If she really hated him that much after everything they’d been through. If she remembered as keenly as he did that not everything that happened between them six years ago had been bad.

“All I want is to keep you safe,” he said. “I figure I owe you that much.”

“Forgive me for not believing you, but that’s the same thing you told me last time. Right before you used me.”

That she could believe that about him made him feel like a son of a bitch. Six years ago his decision to use her as bait and set a trap for Rasmussen had occurred before he’d spent a week in that safe house with her. Before he’d touched her. Before he’d kissed her. Before he’d slept with her. Long before his heart had gotten involved….

In the end she had been the one to carry out the plan—without his blessing. To this day he didn’t know what she’d had to do to get the goods on Rasmussen. That burning question had been tormenting him for six years.

Jake scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “You went behind my back—”

“Sending me to Rasmussen was your idea,” she said.

That much was true. “I tried to abort the sting.”

Her smile was cool. “You were too late, though, weren’t you?”

“You were angry when you found out about the plan,” he said. “You get reckless when you’re angry.”

“We both got reckless, wouldn’t you say?”

He didn’t know what she’d had to do to get Rasmussen to fess up on tape. He didn’t know if she’d had to compromise herself…or worse. The only thing that was crystal clear about any of this was that she blamed him.

Jake bore that blame like a lead weight.

“Damn it, Kelsey—”

“Don’t call me that. Kelsey James no longer exists. My name is Leigh.” She glanced over at her suitcase. “I have to go.”

Jake clamped his jaws together and struggled for patience. “Let me take you to the safe house.” He stepped toward her. “I mean it. I don’t want to see you hurt.”

“I’ll take my chances with Rasmussen. At least with him I know where I stand. He might be brutal, but he’s a straight shooter.”

The words slashed like a knife. Leigh Michaels was no longer the twenty-one-year-old farm girl she’d been six years ago. She’d blossomed into a stunning beauty with the street smarts of an undercover cop. The hard knocks she’d taken showed in her shadowed eyes. In the mouth that no longer smiled so readily. But she was still so beautiful it hurt just to look at her, and Jake felt the pain of it all the way to his bones.

Rounding the bed, she picked up the H&K he’d taken away from her earlier. With the ease of a woman who knew how to handle a firearm, Leigh checked the clip, then sheathed the weapon in her waistband. She walked over to her single suitcase, picked it up and started toward the door.